If you look on the Beebase website www.nationalbeeunit.com it describes how to build the trap which excludes the larger European Hornet and allows smaller insects to escape. It describes how to catch the live insects out of the trap into a plastic bag. Hopefully you can then let the other insects out of the bag before freezing it and then sending the dead Asian Hornet to DEFRA I think - anyhow all the instructions are there on the website.

Beebase home page, Latest NBU news - Asian Hornet Click on "read more"
It says "Further guidance may be found on "Asian Hornet" page. Click on that link, then click on "guidance notes for monitoring" Tedious!

I have emailed Beebase suggesting they put the link on their home page.
Bridget

I have been following the spread and the destruction these disgusting creatures have been causing for the last couple of years and have been dreading the day they arrive in this country.

I have been trying to source the materials to construct the trap as indicated on the bee base website but the issue I have found is the diameter of a standard vented soil pipe is 110mm.

Just about every empty drinks bottle I find lying around in our village has a diameter of 100mm so to get a good fit is going to be difficult.

I don't really want to wander around Tesco as yet with a tape measure to get the diameter of all the different makes of drinks bottles so if anyone knows of a particular brand with the correct diameter then please let me know.

The design with the bottle bottom held on with a plastic-covered wire pin is probably easier to refill and clean and a spare bottom makes it even easier and a lot cheaper than buying the waste pipe fittings IMHO.

My reading suggests a low dose pyrethrum treatment dusted or sprayed onto the trapped hornet before release will be passed into the nest and spread by contact.

My understanding is very little of the active ingredient is needed to reduce hornet foraging numbers and I guess that results in decreasing activity and losses to the immature grubs in the hornet nest.

Early spring trapping of the emerging queens is the most effective control according to the experience of the French, I understand.

You would need to be very careful about when you sprayed and released them if you are going to treat them with something like that. You don't want them heading off into someone's hive after being sprayed.
Not sure I like the idea of it.

The experts suggest the Asian hornets don't enter hives during the early stages of an attack unlike our domestic wasps but 'hawk' outside and pick bees off as they approach (this is mentioned in the lecture) same as our domestic hornets do, hence the strategy outlined should be perfectly safe in regard to collateral damage.

And anyway if the hornet has been in the trap with other insects it's likely to have already taken up its share of food for its nest so is unlikely to continue feeding on release.

Flea sprays are often neonics, you don't want to use them anywhere near your hives. I have used Frontline and similar products on my cats but heard recently their urine is absorbed by plants and reappears in their nectar eventually... argh... I suppose this is the same kind of balancing act farmers face: treat the cats, one of whom is allergic to fleas and gets a terrible rash, and put the bees at risk? There's no "right answer".

Interestingly there is more than one type of Asian Hornet. A national newspaper published a picture of the brightly coloured Giant Asian Hornet next to its "we're all doomed" story, but the species which has arrived in the UK is the Asian Hornet, which has a dark body and looks much more boring. The NBU has some excellent ID charts to avoid confusion here: http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=208

Speaking for myself, I would not want to release an angry live hornet whether I was wearing a bee suit or not...

Flea sprays are often neonics, you don't want to use them anywhere near your hives. I have used Frontline and similar products on my cats but heard recently their urine is absorbed by plants and reappears in their nectar eventually... argh... I suppose this is the same kind of balancing act farmers face: treat the cats, one of whom is allergic to fleas and gets a terrible rash, and put the bees at risk? There's no "right answer".

Interestingly there is more than one type of Asian Hornet. A national newspaper published a picture of the brightly coloured Giant Asian Hornet next to its "we're all doomed" story, but the species which has arrived in the UK is the Asian Hornet, which has a dark body and looks much more boring. The NBU has some excellent ID charts to avoid confusion here: http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=208

Speaking for myself, I would not want to release an angry live hornet whether I was wearing a bee suit or not...

No one is suggesting using neonics near the beehive.

The scheme being suggested is catching the hornet in a trap near the hive, taking its picture, spraying it lightly with a slow acting pyrethrum based insecticide and releasing it somewhere else away from the hive.

I would experiment with the use of a tissue or newspaper cover on the trap so I am well away when it escapes.

It is very unlikely to continue hunting but will return to the nest and spread the insecticide there.

On the different hornets, the lecture clears that up, it is Vespa Velutina we are talking about.

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Quality Top Bar Hives by Andrew Vidler

Conserving wild bees

Research suggests that bumble bee boxes have a very low success rate in actually attracting bees into them. We find that if you create an environment where first of all you can attract mice inside, such as a pile of stones, a drystone wall, paving slabs with intentionally made cavities underneath, this will increase the success rate.

Most bumble bee species need a dry space about the size a football, with a narrow entrance tunnel approximately 2cm in diameter and 20 cm long. Most species nest underground along the base of a linear feature such as a hedge or wall. Sites need to be sheltered and out of direct sunlight.